Conversations with Kobe

cathartic too. I kind of got to know him and and and honestly, he was he actually had asked me to come on this podcast. And this is a weird thing in our business, you know when you make a friend. And Kobe and I weren't always friendly or friends or whatever. Like I didn't really know him. Um it's like we're like ships passing the night, like Los Angeles. Orange County

is my hometown. Yet he moved into Newport Beach when I was you know, I was away college and then playing overseas, and you know, for the first was a twelve years out of college. You know, there's two thousand. I didn't live in southern California. I barely vacation in southern California. Just my in laws are in Oklahoma. We were we were east coast or traveling. I would would come out maybe once a year. But you know, I didn't thim a native Los Angeleo or native of Orange County.

I didn't, um, you know, he he kind of dug roots in Orange County that I had already had and maybe it had been uplifted a little bit. So anyway, UM, I just here's kind of the my Kobe Bryant story. As we all kind of collectively grieve, and I think the grieving is multi layered. You're grieving the loss of Kobe Bryant. You're grieving, you know, for many people a

basketball hero. What he become as an iconic figure um in the American sports lexicon in coming back from personal failures, right professional failures, and he was the picture of what what what work ethic is supposed to be. Like, what's amazing about Kobe Bryant is he's known for this Mama mentality. And this's a bunch of different ways in which people look at the MoMA mentality, but he's known for something in terms of his work ethic that goes counter to

the stereotype of the son of a professional athlete. Right, Normally, the son of a professional athlete is supposed to be somebody who acts entitled. And there's there was some entitlement there, there was some arrogance there. There was a lot of

confidence there obviously. But I think what's, um, what's what's fascinating about it is like, how many sons of NBA players don't work that hard because they were born with a silver spoon in their math, you know, born at their base and thought they hit a triple like that wasn't Kobe Bryant. He he didn't just want to make the NBA. He wanted to. He wanted to He wanted to rip everybody's heart out, that's what he want to do. And he wanted to just get better and better and

better and didn't want to be an NBA player. He wanted to be the best NBA player. So here's my Kobe Bryant story. When I was at CBS, UM, I was driving home one night when the Eric Garner story

kind of reached a peak. Right, that was the I can't breathe movement, And so a lot of like what happens I think with Twitter, with social media is that we tweet from like our perspective, our time, our moment, thinking everybody else sees it that way because that's our egocentric way of using social media to to like display our own kind of arrogance ecocentric nature. Right, that makes sense. Like, so I'm driving home through Manhattan and I think I

either had a dinner or I was avoiding traffic. I can't remember how I got caught on. Like I'm gonna say, eighth Avenue or uh Avenue right, eighth Avenue. Yeah, um, but eighth Avenue became shut down because there was a march marching across Eighth Avenue with the ie can't breathe, you know, I can't breathe movement, and I look, I'm no one's probe police brutality that I know. Um, I knew a little bit about the story. I knew that

there was there was a lot to it, right. I just remember feeling super unsafe, super unsteady, just because I was a white dude in a I think I was in a GMC truck at the time, and I'm like, there's like people surrounding the car and like banging on the windows, and I was like, what what, I didn't do it. I'm just I'm trying to drive home now, i'd also carry then this is like a far avel.

But like, look my childhood Eli Riots and I remember dudes getting hauled out of trucks and the ship kicked out of them, right, and I'm like, what what what happened here? So I mentioned the march and the people pounding on my windows in my car and kind of feeling super unsafe, and like I remember calling my wife like, I mean, I'm coming home, but like, I just gotta wait till this thing dies down before they opened up Eighth Avenue and she's like, what do you mean open

it up? Like they're having this massive, massive march. She's just going on, you know, three or four or five thousand people walking across Eighth Avenue. I don't know they're walking to Times Square or where they were walking to anyway. Um, So I got home. I think it was that night or maybe the next night. And if you remember, the Lakers were playing, I'm gonna say I don't rememb where

they're playing. Were they playing the heat? And Lebron was still on the heat I think, and they all had I can't breathe shirts on I remember I distinct remember Kobe and lebron with I can't breathe shirts and I can't breathe, while the idea behind it is to end police brutality. Right, the guy was selling cigarettes outside a liquor store for Christ's sake and he lost his life,

Like it's crazy. So anyone who's reasonable is like, you know, I don't know what the punishment should have been for a guy who's repeatedly selling bootlegs cigarettes, but dying is not even on the list of things. Right. On the other hand, like when you hear more about the story was it was the liquor store owner who's you know, doing trying to do things the right way and sell his own cigarettes and er gardener out front had been told to move. Who knows how many times he had moved?

Like what do you do if you're a top right, you're much smaller than a guy he doesn't want to move. He's a gigantic man. He's like a known person personality, and he's not obeying your orders, Like what do you do? And I guess you probably just could have pepper sprayed him and moved him, right, Is that right? That's a non violent way. I don't believe anybody's ever died from pepper spray a little, you know, so you know, it

looked like a chokehold to me. And then you know, the reports are that he and he had obviously had a weight problems, he had a heart attack, and then I mean the bigger thing was if you again, my memory of this is pretty uh, pretty thorough. I believe the bigger thing was that when the paramedics came, like, he's just laying there. Nobody performs CPR for however long. Right, there's a there's a layers. There's a layers to any story.

But I do think that there was a good portion of people that put on the I Can Breathe shirt and the message was fucked the police. It just us. Look, I grew up listening to n w A. I've had anybody who's had a run in with a with a cop who's just a jerk, who's you know, who's feeling himself a little bit. He's got the badge, he's got

the gun, he's the tough guy. On the other hand, I'd like to believe we live in a country where the greatest highest percentage of police officers are really just there you know, to keep the peace, to do their job, to go home safely and collect good benefits, right, like, let's be reasonable. So I was. I just I felt like, especially the class of NBA players, not they're not all this way, but look, NBA players, many of them are in fact protected by police, and Kobe was the perfect example.

I had lived when I first moved to California, and I believe that was during the UH before the I Can Breathe movement. Right two thousand, two thou fourteen, I was living in in Orange County, and two thousand twelve and two thou thirty, I was living in Irvine, right on the border of Newport Coast, which is where Kobe lived. I would go to the same Starbucks and Code would just pull up and not even park, like you know, right out in front, tinted front window. Like in California.

I I rolled up in my car, I tinted side windows like passenger side, driver's side. I got pulled over like three or four times. Finally I had to get the tent peeled off, tack me off like he had like Limo tinted front. Now, I'm not disputing that Kobe Bryant is a completely different realm of anybody else in the world in terms of Superstar. But like, look, dude, you're kind of part of the protected class. You live

behind the gate. Nobody would ever mess with Kobe Bryant, especially, and that's why he lived in Newport, Newport Coast at the time. Was my belief was because he was part of protected class. So like a protected glass of people wearing a the police shirt, I felt like was a contradiction. And so I had some tweet I don't really remember what is. I'm sure I could Twitter search. You probably get Twitter search you want. And it was like, hey, how ironic. Kobe Bryant, who lives you know, you know

it does what he wants, lives behind the gate. He's the one criticizing the police who protect him every day. So that nothing ever happens to Kobe. I tweet it. It doesn't go over well, you know, Twitter already fucking hates me. Um. And so now I become like a racist, which I'm not, and I'm a racist. I'm this, I'm that, I'm a right winger, I'm pro cop, I'm anti black people. Black lives matters, all that matters. I became blue lives matter.

I don't even know. I I just kind of figured it was just a I'm a sports guy who was a sarcastic, kind of caustic sports tweet. It's when I specialized in. So Jason Whitlock at the time actually text me like, what what are you doing? This is not a place to joke. And I was like, oh, I take it down. So I just took it down, and you know, things go viral and they get crazy, and my bosses at CBS at the time like what are you doing? And I was like, it's just a tweet.

Doesn't nobody got hurt by it. I didn't choke anybody out. So I called my friend Rick Buker, because Buke, going back to our days at ESPN, he had a he had a line to Kobe. When Kobe was first wanted to be traded, he talked to Buke. Um Buker had done a great job of establishing a relationship. I used to mess with him that you could barely see Kobe's lips moving when Rick Buker talked, but he thought it was funny, and I knew that was my best way into Kobe. So I called him and I was like, hey, man,

can you give me Kobe's number? He's like why. I was like, I put on a tweet and he's like, oh, I saw it was funny. I go, yeah, I'm not sure Kobe thinks it's funny. So I'm gonna I'm gonna apologize in a text. Yeah. He's like, just text him. He's a text guy. So I texted him. We text back and I was like, hey, man, I just want to tell you I have put out a tweet. Um,

I wouldn't. I didn't. There was a little bit of truth to it because our kids had gone Our kids had gone to school together for a year at a school called Harbor Day and Giohn was very little at the time, like in um, say, second grade, and our girls were all together in second grade. I have I have twin daughters exact same age, and so when we knew each other a little bit. Um anyway, I was like, hey, sorry. He was like no, he text me back, no problem

at all, don't worry about it. So fast forward two years later from that point and I actually moved back to Orange County, and the reason we moved back to honestly renting the same house we had rented the time before. Was we wanted because we're moving so much with our kids, we wanted them to be in the same school. So my daughters got back into Harbor Day. My son did not, and just because I didn't have space, and all was good and I kind of reconnected with They have a

big opening kick pick Dick or whatever. And Kobe was there and he had a The year that we were there before was the eory towards Kill, his tenant, and he was always at the school, always, always, always, and so um it was interesting that like my daughters who didn't know anything about Kobe Bryant, just knew Kobe because he was always around, like serving lunches at their school, like one day a week, and like field trips occasionally go on, and you know, he started running Mamba volleyball

back then for his older daughter. Anyway, Um, so I said hi to him, and you know, we explained, exchanged pleasant trees. And Rob Polinka's kids also go to that exact go to that school as well, and this is this is going back, this is uh, I don't know, was it three years ago, yeah, almost two and a half years ago. So we started kind of a text relationship and Gianna asked my daughter Harper to play on Mama's basketball team, and I think they played a pe

and Harper was super intimidated by Gianna in basketball. She's like, Gianna is the nicest kid ever. And just for the record, so people understand, there are kids that are sons and daughters of a rich important people that are jerks, are little assholes, right, Gianna Brian is not among those people. She was a sweetheart. Like I had two daughters there,

uh both one was definitely getting a little bullied. Um, one was kind of getting bullied, and Gianna was the one who She's the kid who, like you see in an after school special, like she would step in like this is again part of my girls. She would step in and say like no, this is You're not gonna treat anybody poorly like she's she's a she was a great kid, great um and apple trees make apples, right, So it speaks to Vanessa, it speaks to Kobe and

how they raised her. Of course she's my daughter. Harper would say, like, I'm not playing basketball Gianna because when you play with her, I drink pa. She's like a different person, Like she flips the switch kind of like remember, um, over the top, remember Sylvester Stallone's character, and over the top, like when he turned his hat to the back, he'd become a different guy. That's how Gianna Bryant was when she played bass play basketball, So she didn't play the

basketball team. She kind of kicked herself for it. And then, you know, if you know anything about Mamba early on when it started, you know, it's just a bunch of girls from Harbor Day and Newport Beach and it was just a little club team and they got smashed by another team. And Kobe was he wasn't embarrassed that they got smashed. It was that they didn't know how to play basketball like that. He's like, they're not playing back

like anybody who's watched AU. It's like, you know, if a team is bad, you can't drow, we can't pass cans. She just doesn't look right. And he was like, Okay, we're not playing in a tournaments. We're gonna do six months, five days a week of just teaching you how to play, and then we'll play tournaments. And so that's what happened.

That's how Mamba the basketball things started. And obviously, Gianna, you've practiced that much he hired Christina Mauser Mauser, who was the p teacher, to be one of her coaches. He hired other coaches as well to come in and work with his his girls, and soon enough they became the best team in southern California, the same team to beat in by forty. They smashed by forty like the

next time they played. So our friendships started really because our kids went to the same school, and he was like, hey, you know, Harvard Day Dad, we should get We should get together with a bunch of Harvard Day dudes and all the parents. They are really pretty cool, and so first it was like, hey, we gotta range schedules. And then I actually we took one of my daughters, Grace,

out of the school. She was struggling academically. And then Harper didn't love like the social scene just because she didn't play basketball Gianna, so her friend group was like one or two other girls, and she's just like, I

want to go to a big public school anyway. So I was part of me was a little embarrassing, like does he want to get together with me just because my kid goes to school with his kid or do we have a legit relationship and I actually texted him and asked him and said, hey, dude, just so you know, like I think we're pulling my girl out of harbor day.

He's like, yeah, we're still good though, right. I was like, yeah, So anyway, spring of now spring at two thous eighteen or maybe nineteen, I remember, Um, I remember getting a text from him because we had we had talked a bunch on text come uh once on the phone, a couple of times in person and events, and we're like, we gotta get it to get a good drinks. Sends me a text, and we had missed each other in other texts in terms of getting together. There's a place

called Javier's. If you listen to Jim Rome show, Jim kind of made the thing popular. Um it's uh, it's now become a chain. It's a high end masking place, good drinks, and Kobe has his own drink, the Momba there. So he's like, hey, Javiers like seven thirty. So here's my I'm not gonna tell you everything that happened, but um, this is like a night with Kobe, just me and him. So my wife is a little weird out by it because she's like Why does he wanted? Why does he

want to talk to you? Like I don't know the guys get together and have drinks. She's like, I don't. I did. Why would he just wanted? Like he has friends, you're not as friends, like we've actually been kind of friends, like text friends. That's not a real friend. I was like, all right, fine, So I assumed I'm gonna show up. There's be a bunch of some other like Harvard Ay dads,

some other dads. I know, a couple of other dudes that are you know, like um one of the guys that died Alto Belly Alta is like everyone knows him. He has been the junior college baseball coach at oc C Orange Coast College forever. Like I just figured I walk into a room and they'll be those kind of guys and we'd all be bullshitting having to a couple of drinks. So I walk into Javier's and I was like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom first. Now he might

be asking like why would you go to the bathroom first? Well, I just thought, like if I get engaged in a conversation with Kobe Bryant, like I don't wanna have to go pee, and like then, you know how guys are, like you lose your train of thought, you move on somebody else at the table, the conversation never starts again. I'm not a clinger, just the reality of I would

have to be at some point. I remember going pe washing my hands and walking out and expecting to walk into the back part of Javier is gonna be a bunch of dudes there, and it's like Kobe Bryant sitting

by himself, almost like it was a blind date. And uh, we talked for we talked for hours, and the conversation started talking about basketball and about how basketball should be taught, and so I said, you know, he told me a little bit about when he first started playing in Italy and how he was taught, and he didn't really know. He knew my dad had been a you coached locally, but he didn't know like made my dad coach in college and all the different ties and um, so we

just started talking about teaching kids. And this is where like he kind of won me that night, like he had already won me over based upon his text and the fact he was just he started to become like an he's still a superstar and superstars do things just differently. But there was a real human being and a pretty good and I was like, man, this guy's a good dude. Like we started talking about how to how to coach, now to teach kids and and here's kind of my story.

So when we moved back to Orange County, I wanted my son to get in some workouts. And there's a guy named Shae Freeze who uh shay is a works for Bill Duffy. He's a very good workout coach. You good basketball player in his own right. I think D three up in uh Washington and he was running a program called point Break. So um, my longtime friend Dylan Rigg didn who played a U s Irvine and an Arizona and then played in Australia. He has uh two older kids kid named walk. His son Joaquin is two

years older than my son. He was like, hey, wha, kinos this point break? Bring Hayes to a workout. So I go. And they were really good, but their teams were ship like. They literally every tournament they play in they get beat by thirty forty points because they couldn't pass and they couldn't play together. And yeah they could all Eurostep and they had some advanced moves, but they

didn't pivot well. And you know, after doing this for like two months, three months, and Hayes played up and played in a couple of games and he's one very good at time. Full disclosure. Uh Shade texted me after a workout and he's like, what do you think? And I was like, well, say, when are you gonna do passing? When are you gonna do pivoting? What are you gonna do? You know, some of their work on their defensive form and their positioning, it's like, should we do that? Like yeah,

it's actually the first they just skip steps. It's like they taught kids how to run and forgot that you have to walk first, or even crawl before you walk. So I kind of took over and started coaching a team. When we started competing and winning. And then fast forward to the next year, Say struggled to get a gym, and so I got a gym and eventually kind of absorbed the program, turned it into my dad's name sake,

which was Branch West, and now we have workouts. So I was telling Kobe, like, dude, they don't know how to pivot. They don't know how to pass, they don't know how to screen, and here we are teaching how to fucking eurostep, you know, and how to do all this fancy ship that they see in transition in the NBA played downhill, Like, you can't play downhill if you can't break a press, can't play downhill if you don't

know how to actually set a ball screen. You know, you can't play downhill if you can't play without the ball as well as with the ball in terms of spacing and getting your feet ready, in your hands ready, and your body ready for the ball when you catch and you can shoot. And he's like, exactly, So he started telling me his story. We started we're talking ball. Then he like switches to talking about the Wizarding Series

or whatever it's called. And look, you know, when you sit with somebody like, oh god, this guy's he's smarter than me. And I like to think that I'm pretty smart guys. I do like being in rooms where I'm I'm the dumbest guy in I was the dumber guy in the conversation because in the midst of talking about basketball, talking about kids, talking about life, getting to know each other, and by the way, I just want to fold disclosure.

The first thing I said when we first started talking was, hey, I don't know if you remember by I sent you a text about a tweet that I had and go back in the I can't breathe. And he looked at me, do you remember the do you remember that Kobe Jalen Rose commercial where he ordered eighty one olives these Now I'm just kidding anyway, there was the before that. Jalen's like, hey, I said, I put this thing out on Twitter. Is like, man, I'll pay attention that ship, right he It was the

exact line. That's exactly what he said to me, is like, seriously, I don't care, Like I wouldn't have invited to drinks if I gave a ship about a tweet three years ago about I can't Breathe don't care like cool. So um, He's switches to talking about his books, podcasts, movies, his vision for this thing. And I was like, you had a lot of time to think about this. He's like, I don't know how, Like I'm a storyteller. This was

when I was in school, Like I couldn't. I was I want to be like an English teacher, write books or whatever. And one of his I mentioned there's five movies. That was because at some point in the conversation like what are your five favorite movies? And there's like Godfather, there was um uh Steel Magnolia's, which I was like, really Harry Potter, Um, I'll remember the other two in

a second. I remember Harry Potter. And he's like, I'm telling you this should be bigger than Harry Potter because there's so many He was telling about these different worlds and different wizards and different age groups it sells to, and how it could eventually be an amusement park, and I was like, dude, you've really thought this thing out. He's like, what do you think I do all day?

I go, I don't know. What do you do? Is like I get up at four in the morning, I go work out at Equinox, and you know, um, he takes his older daughter works out with him, and then he comes back and um, he has breakfast and he helps, you know, get kids up and ready and go to school, and then he goes to his office and he works, you know, and he's got he's a venture capitalist as well as he's got the books in the podcast, and then he's also got mamba and he does this other investments.

I was like, dude, this guy's unbelievable. And like I said, like the more you know how guys can use big words and they're not really smart and they use them out of context. So Kobe Bryant, We're having all these conversations and people come up and everyone who works at

the restaurant is bilingual. Guess who else is bilingual? Kobe Bryant, Right, So, like it's one thing to order a mamba and say, you know those mamba sport famular, but like to have a full on conversation with guys that work on the restaurant in Spanish and then turn around and be right back in the conversation about the Wizarding Series or whatever.

You're like, holy sh it, this dude's brain is on fire. Meanwhile, I got like four drinks in me and I'm just sitting here going I can't believe I'm talking to Kobe Bryant. So we talked about basketball, We started talking about Lebron, We started talking about Mike. I shared this story on radio.

It's that this is he said this to me several times about how um the mom mentality is also kind of a derivation of some of the things he read about warriors and samurais and Phil Jackson actually taught him. And he's like, you know, the thing that I learned from Phil and through all my studies and reading, is like, when you're at war, it's full scale psychological warfare, right like any of these leaders of countries, even our own, in order to get all the soldiers to buy in,

it's full scale psychological warfare. He is like, I believe that. In basketball. I was like, all right, He's like, that's why I could. That's why Mike knows. He can't funk with me, like we you mean, Mike can't funk with you, like is Michael Jordan? Dude? And and at this point one we had established a friendship too. I had some drinks in me, he had some drinks in him, and you know, I was like, look, dude, I love you.

I think you're unbelievable, you know, top ten all time player, but you tried to talk and walk like Michael Jordan and play like Michael Jordan's like, let's be honest, my Mike's the goat. He's like, yeah, okay, but he can't work with me because I would use full scale psychological warfare. I said, Kobe, what are you gonna say to Michael Jordan that hasn't already been said in terms of trash talk. It's like, you know, his dad loved Larry More. I was like, what what it's like, you know Larry. I

was like, yeah, Larry Jordan. His younger brother was only his older brother was only six ft tall. Mike was the only guy who sprouted up in his family. It's like, he's like, it was always a thing that Mike thought his dad loved Larry Moore, and he probably treated him that way because Larry never grew, he didn't have the god given gifts that that Mike had. I was like, so you would say that. He's like, yeah, full skill

psychological warfare. I was like wow. So we started talking about Lebron and he's like, yeah, Lebron, you know he wants to have this mentality, but it's just not in his makeup, Like he just he just isn't. He ain't like us all the time, and he's broke through some of it, but he hasn't always broken through. He's like and he's like, I've never had the problem taking the big shot or missing the big shot that didn't bother me.

He's like, where Lebron like he he gets the most joy out of making having somebody else make the shot. He's like, which, I'm just that is just not how

I'm white. We're wired so differently as people. But he also told me that, like, look, I old Lebron and this was Lebron was playing in the NBA Finals for with the with the calves at the point, at that point in time we're close to playing, He's like, dude, I told him he needs to get in the post more, you know, he needs to roll down to the post and needs to simplify his game really work on just playing out the post, passing on the post, scoring out

the posts. He's gotta become a bucket get get, get a fade away, go and use his body like play from the elbow as well. And then he started talking about other guys in the NBA that he kind of

like secretly works with. And this is probably the part that you're starting to hear stories about on social media that Kobe Bryant, who most people half America thought was an asshole for a long time, and he probably probably maybe he was, like if you were seventeen years old and you're a kid and a millionaire and son of a pro, and all of a sudden you're playing in l A with Shaquille O'Neal. Like, you'll probably be a jerk sometimes too, write you'd probably be entitled, Mike, wouldn't

you like the world fell at your feet? We watched him grow up and evolved, But he so did a lot of things for people, and he wanted nothing in return. But he wanted no PR like their stories coming out about going and seeing sick kids and cancer awards. But he told would tell the parents, you know, like, listen, this is not about PR. This is about your kid. There's lots of stories like that. The same is true with the workouts with players and the texts with players

and the calls to players. Like he loved ball. He'd watch it and then he'd send a guy a text. Here's something I saw and like anybody who sees a text from Kobe Bryant's gonna read it, and like, damn, Kobe Bryant's watching my game. I would guess there are fifty guys in the NBA that have texts out saved on their phone from Kobe Bryant where he's like, dude, you need to do this more, you need to do that, or now that they had momb Academy they start working together.

He just did things like that, which brings me around to why he was never on the podcast. When Lebron signed with the Lakers, Kobe came on. I was guest hosting The Dan Patrick Show me and Jason Smith, and I text him like, hey, dude, this is not why we're friends. Will you come on? It's like absolutely, And then I just didn't want to ask him a podcast because that wasn't why we were friends. I didn't want to use a friendship. Not that people are on the

podcast aren't really friends. They are, but I don't know, I just felt weird about it. I just felt like I would be that guy who is only befriending Kobe Bryant and sending you know, he's sending me videos of different sets they're running out of Triangle and new things that he's putting in, you know, because I want him on my podcast to get downloads, to make more money. Like I just didn't That's not how I wanted wanted

to be. UM. So now I sit here, I don't know five days removed from Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashing and him tragically dying with eight other people, several others who uh, somebody my family knew really really well. And I'm bummed because I could have had a great audio record of an interesting conversation. I don't know. I'm I've been really sad with this. And again I'm not gonna lie to you. I was not best friends with Kobe Bryant. I never

went over to his house. He never came out to my house, although he was It was at one point in time there was a text from him was like when we when are we getting the invite to watch games of your house? And you know, we bought a house like a year ago or two years ago, and we've been process of redoing it and the last thing we want is like Kobe Bryant coming over during a remote. All right, but he would have been cool. We've been fine. So there's other stuff. Um. He he was interesting and

that he really understood the psychology of players. He he likes Shack, and I think Shack understood. I think, at the end of the day, I don't know Shack actually understands why they the Lakers chose him over Shack. Um, I think most of the basketball world does. Shack was great, Chack was dominant. Shack could have been the best player in the history of the NBA. But Chack likes to have fun, like to have a good time, you know, would work in basket on basketball and basketball season, whereas

Kobe like this. He was a professional basketball player. He was a licensed killer and he spent the offseason thinking about how he's gonna kill people in the regular season, where Shack would use training camp an early season to get in shape. That's why he wasn't the league's MVP off it, even though he was the most dominant player in the league. And he kind of worked together for a long long time. Obviously, some of the comments that they made about each other started to to to break,

started to make a fissure with it within the two. So, Um, maybe I've rambled on this, but I'll tell you this. Like one, he loved basketball. Kobe Bryant loved understood basketball. It wasn't the only thing he wanted to do in this next version of himself, but he really loved the art of what basketball is. He was kind of a recluse. He was a bit of a loner. He was a little awkward. He did to have a tency to befriend the bottom guy and the totem pole. Maybe because that

guy would never kind of challenge his authority. I don't know. Um I didn't get a chance to know him well enough where I could ask him why he was how he was earlier in his life. I can also tell you this, When I was young and at ESPN, like, I had a friend of mine who's an agent and endeavor say like, you know, god like, but I kind of like, I really like you now. I met you when you're like twenties and ESPN, and I didn't like you like I feel like I've been the same guys like, nah,

you're much better now. I think the same can be said for Kobe. Maybe that's what I see in him, Maybe that's what we all see in him. Is he was a guy who went from being sometimes a punk, sometimes entitled, sometimes aloof to a dad and the dad of girls, which I have twin girls that are thirteen years old. And not only that, chill you out. It gives you a different perspective and and you become much more relatable. You know, I'll share with you more in

future PROD podcasts about him. UM, I don't think the logo of the NBA should change for Kobe Bryant. And this is not to say it wasn't a great player, but you know, like, if it's not gonna be Jordan's, UM, what Jerry West's logo is perfect. Jerry West is the only player in the history of the NBA to be the to the finals MVP and his team not win. That's how good he was. And he averaged forty points a game in UM. You know, I I think it's knee jerk, but it is. It's he was the generations Jordan's.

And one of the things that Lebron has fought is how Kobe was, how Jordan was, was how I grew up. The best player was supposed to be and and here's what I mean. Kobe would guard the other team's best player, and he wanted the ball and was willing to take and even miss the game winning shot. For for the life of me, as long as I've played basketball, once you start playing pick up, you know, you could do a pickup game. And anybody's ever played ball with magic.

Matt Johnson's the greatest Laker ever unbelievable passer, but Magic Johnson the end of a pickup game, the end of an NBA game, you gave the ball to Magic and he was gonna go make a play. The bank shot in Boston, the hook shot in Boston. Uh. Obviously Magic was a great passer, but he was a licensed killer at the end of games. And Magic was a bad defender, but he wasn't afraid to guard whoever the other team's best player was. That's what we were taught great the

greatest of great two. That's what Jordan did. That's what Bird did. That is frankly what Kobe Bryant did. And so what Lebron has fought is like Lebron's like, look, I'll take whatever the best shot is. I love creating shots for other people. You double team, and that's hard. And and there have been times when he wasn't guarded the other team's best player, or he has and he

got lit up by Kevin Durant. But I think it's that's part of the mentality of the true basketball Alpha and why he was so admired by NBA players, because he was fearless at both ends, even to a fault when he would take bad shots like Game seven of the NBA Finals. I can't attest to how he was every hour of every day or how he treated you, but I do. I live in a community that I shared with with Kobe Bryant, and um, he had some run ins with parents, as anybody who runs an AU

program does. But I do believe that he had the best intentions at heart of Hey, if you're in, you're in. If you're not, you're not, I mean wanting. There's a couple of girls that he he cut from the team because whether it's injury or other sports, they weren't making practice is and um, I actually understand it, Like I would love to do that with my program for some of these kids. I just my program, isn't it. I

don't have his unlimited resources. I don't have, you know, ten kids that I can go the you too, you can't show up, you're out, you don't play. I would like, you know a lot of people would like to run their AU program the way that Kobe did. We just don't have the resources, need the kids. You know, can't bid a dude to kids or that's not And I'm and I'm a pretty hard line guy. Um. So I can't vouch from in every aspect of his life, I can tell you this. He impressed me as a guy.

He was incredibly bright, he loved basketball, loved loved basketball. Um and the Mamba mentality was more than I want to take and make the big shot. To me, the MoMA mentality was really this vote uh which I saw and I'm just I continue to kind of marvel in. This is from Cobe Ryan. I have self doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, my back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill. We all

have self doubt. We don't deny it. You don't deny it, but you don't capitulate to it. You embrace it. I try and teach my kids about that as well. With the same thing with jealousy, Like, jealousy is not a bat not a terrible thing, and it's you can't deny that you have it. It's what does jealousy make you do? Does make you do some mean to somebody else, or does it make you work hard so that you can get what they have, all right, It's okay to be jealous,

that's all right. Does that fuel you as motivation? You know? Does uh insecurity fuel you or does it make you shut down? That's the true Mama meant that's the true mama mentality, you know. Because Kobe as a player could be selfish, could be self aggrandizing, could be arrogant and aloof. But the good parts of Kobe, and the parts that came out more and more, were about work ethic, about finding a way to use what other people see as

negatives to fuel you to ultimately become a positive. And uh, look, we have lots of athletes post career success stories like Lebron will eventually be And there's champions of business. Shakill is a champion in business, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning champions in business, and there are more plenty more where they use their money and their wealth to buy into other businesses and they create ridiculous generational wealth if they

didn't already have it. That stuff is amazing. But to me, what what made Kobe special is it wasn't even it wasn't about buying burger kings or buying Chick fil A's or whatever. It was about creating a business from nothing, making it into something and then like that is that ship is hard. And he was just like with the AU program, just like with the Lakers. He was an all in guy. He was the word I like to use. And I if you ever described me as indefatigable, which

is not fatiguable, that's how you describe Kobe Bryant. That's how I want to be described. That's how you described Kobe Bryant. And again I can't vouch for him in all aspects of life. I can only tell you in my interactions the person that wasn't a Kobe guy, that not a shot guy. I understood that he had more value for longer because he got more juice out of the orange than Shack could ever get. Uh. I thought it was a pretty good dude, a really good dude.

I consider him a friend. I'm super sad for everyone who lost somebody. My my daughter lost a best friend on that helicopter, and um, I know Rob Perlinkol lost a best friend. And I know that my friend Miles Simon, have you heard in this path he lost an absolute idol in Kobe Bryant who would become a friend as well. Uh. And I know there's lots of people who grew up watching basketball who are just crestfallen that you're not gonna chance to see Kobe Bryant courtside with Gianna and she

was just gonna be a special player. Um, the only thing I can do is share the story with I'll share with you one more thing and then we'll wrap the pod. I asked him, I just like, what's the greatest thing you've ever done in basketball? And he goes, you know, people always said that I didn't make anybody better. That was the thing. I don't make guys better. And he's like how Derek Fisher do When he left, he started going through the different guys, you know, And did

lamar Odom ever win? Was lamar Odom focused unless he played with us? And they said, you know, Pagasol, excuse my language of Pakastan. This is from Kobe Pallasol. People on in the NBA thought he was a pussy comes and plays the Lakers, he said. The people said, you can't win a championship, Pacasol, He's too oft. You know what, we won two championships with pall Gasol, So he's like, my the greatest thing is it's no different than Lebron.

You want other to see other people succeed. Look at Lamar, look at Fish, you know, look at Palla Gasol and the success that they had as part of our championship runs. It's pretty amazing. It's a really good point. I'll share with you more thoughts of Kobe on our next pod. In the meantime, getting the gym. Getting the gym, overcome your own insecurity and love ball the way that Kobe love ball. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is all ball.